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Unpayable Debt
Coloniality, raciality, and global capitalism from a black feminist “poethical” perspective.
Unpayable Debt examines the relationships among coloniality, raciality, and global capital from a black feminist “poethical” perspective. Inspired by Octavia E. Butler's 1979 sci-fi novel Kindred, in which an African-American writer is transported back in time to the antebellum South to save her owner-ancestor, Unpayable Debt relates the notion of value to coloniality—both economic and ethical. Focusing on the philosophy behind value, Denise Ferreira da Silva exposes capital as the juridical architecture and ethical grammar of the world. Here, raciality—a symbol of coloniality—justifies deployments of total violence to enable expropriation and land extraction.
This is the first volume in the On the Antipolitical series.
Unpayable Debt examines the relationships among coloniality, raciality, and global capital from a black feminist “poethical” perspective. Inspired by Octavia E. Butler's 1979 sci-fi novel Kindred, in which an African-American writer is transported back in time to the antebellum South to save her owner-ancestor, Unpayable Debt relates the notion of value to coloniality—both economic and ethical. Focusing on the philosophy behind value, Denise Ferreira da Silva exposes capital as the juridical architecture and ethical grammar of the world. Here, raciality—a symbol of coloniality—justifies deployments of total violence to enable expropriation and land extraction.
This is the first volume in the On the Antipolitical series.
328 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published May 31, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 14, 2025
Read it in a reading group.
I quite liked da Silva's earlier work - particularly TGIR. The exact scope of this project seems a little less well defined. I quite liked her use of the Octavia Butler story as a framing device and the nonlinear history of colonialism works. That being said the easy association between Enlightenment thinking and modernity - I was a bit uneasy with. Are there not modernities outside of the Enlightenment cannon? The relationship between figure and scene was interesting although I could do a little bit less with vocabulary building. It also is a genre issue - so is this a philosophical text that I should look for definitions and read in a systematic way or is it a narrative logic where I shouldn't worry about those kinds of things in the same way?
There's a long chapter on primitive accumulation and what she calls the economic scene - which reworks some of Robinson's critiques of prim acc. Her basic problem with Marx is that the account of primitive accumulation we get leaves "total violence" of colonialism outside of capital's everyday operations. I'm not as interested in what counts as "inside" and "outside" and I think Marx himself is just more interesting than that. Or at least there's a lot more interesting ways to read Marx than just that.
There's a chapter describing what total violence is - it feels like an Agamben infused figure of bare life almost.
Anyhow, there's a lot more inside baseball for Black studies - da Silva has extensive critiques conversations with Spiller, Moten, Wynter etc. Since I don't know that literature as well that critique may have gone above my head a little bit!
I quite liked da Silva's earlier work - particularly TGIR. The exact scope of this project seems a little less well defined. I quite liked her use of the Octavia Butler story as a framing device and the nonlinear history of colonialism works. That being said the easy association between Enlightenment thinking and modernity - I was a bit uneasy with. Are there not modernities outside of the Enlightenment cannon? The relationship between figure and scene was interesting although I could do a little bit less with vocabulary building. It also is a genre issue - so is this a philosophical text that I should look for definitions and read in a systematic way or is it a narrative logic where I shouldn't worry about those kinds of things in the same way?
There's a long chapter on primitive accumulation and what she calls the economic scene - which reworks some of Robinson's critiques of prim acc. Her basic problem with Marx is that the account of primitive accumulation we get leaves "total violence" of colonialism outside of capital's everyday operations. I'm not as interested in what counts as "inside" and "outside" and I think Marx himself is just more interesting than that. Or at least there's a lot more interesting ways to read Marx than just that.
There's a chapter describing what total violence is - it feels like an Agamben infused figure of bare life almost.
Anyhow, there's a lot more inside baseball for Black studies - da Silva has extensive critiques conversations with Spiller, Moten, Wynter etc. Since I don't know that literature as well that critique may have gone above my head a little bit!
October 2, 2025
This book will rip you apart, push on your wits, and (hopefully) seriously change your views on epistemology and ontology. From deconstructing Hegel and Kant to poetics to an incredibly lucid and compelling reading of Marx, this book has it all. This book was tough, and I do think a decent understanding of Hegel, Kant, Marx, and Husserl helps here (especially Kant and Husserl). Let this book obliterate you.
June 30, 2025
So. Fucking. Good. Mindblowingly good. But also omg this is a mountain of a book. Read everything but chapter 2 and I feel it sucked my brain power dry.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews